LONDON – The tens of thousands of protesters who flooded the streets of Russia over the weekend not only increased pressure on Vladimir Putin, but also put another president on the spot: Joe Biden.
Biden’s new foreign policy team is facing a myriad of internal and external challenges – among which the least important is what to do with the strong man in the Kremlin.
At first glance, it appears that the new team at the top of the State Department is putting its rhetorical foot on the demonstrations, which follow the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny with nervous agent Novichok in August and his defiant return to Russia this month. Hours after the first arrests on Russian streets on Saturday, American officials said Washington had condemned “harsh tactics against protesters and journalists”.
Biden spoke to Putin on Tuesday for the first time as president and raised concerns about the treatment of the Navalny Kremlin, according to the White House, as well as other issues.
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to Russia’s actions that harm us or our allies,” said the White House.
The Kremlin reading of the leaders’ call did not mention Navalny.
Russian authorities not only arrested Navalny when he returned from Germany to the country, where he was evacuated for treatment after the poisoning; they also detained more than 3,700 protesters and members of the media who took to the streets on Saturday during the biggest demonstration of discontent the country has seen in years.
Navalny’s arrest led Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to demand your immediate release. Sullivan called the Kremlin’s attacks on Navalny “an affront to the Russian people, who want their voices to be heard”.
“The State Department’s quick reaction was recorded here as a sign that the Biden government will actively interfere in Russian politics,” said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, on Monday.
The Kremlin “is preparing for this,” he said.
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On Saturday, tens of thousands of people across Russia faced freezing temperatures, the Covid-19 pandemic and several warnings from authorities to show support for Navalny, who has long been the Kremlin’s loudest critic, and to protest against the corruption among ruling elites, including Putin himself.
A few days earlier, Navalny’s team had released the report of an investigation, which has been viewed more than 91 million times, which allegedly showed bribery schemes involving Putin. On Monday, Putin denied the charges.
Asked whether he is considering sanctions against people involved in Navalny’s poisoning and imprisonment, Biden told reporters on Monday that Washington and Moscow can cooperate in areas of mutual interest, but that his government can also “make it clear to Russia that we are very concerned about his behavior “- whether it’s Navalny or any other points of tension.
Putin is preparing for Biden’s team to be more assertive about Russia than its predecessors, including in its support for Navalny, said Mark Galeotti, professor at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at University College London and a senior associate member from the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank.
The Kremlin’s efforts are “the reason why we saw a particularly quick and, frankly, toxic propaganda campaign being launched to present Navalny precisely as a paid and paid CIA agent,” said Galeotti. “They are trying to position themselves so that they can say, ‘Aha, look, we said this is what is going on – the State Department is coming to support its allies.'”
With Navalny detained and facing years in prison in an old criminal case that has been revived against him, his supporters have vowed to return to the streets this weekend to pressure the government to release him.
But Putin is used to fighting back, said Trenin.
“He never does what others are trying to get him under pressure – in this case, free Navalny,” he said.
The Biden government will have to present more than just statements of condemnation, said Galeotti, or “the Kremlin will see this as a mark of impotence and not of interest”.
Although the Biden government must invoke new sanctions against Russia, they will not be enough, he said.
“The lesson of the past six years is that sanctions do not generally change the government that wants to outlast them,” he said.
Russia has been sanctioned by the U.S. on several occasions, including allegations that it has meddled in the 2016 American elections and because of the annexation of Crimea, with limited success in containing Moscow’s ambitions.
“I think there is political will in the Biden government, but I’m not sure if there is a lot of political imagination,” said Galeotti, adding that Biden will have to look for new ways to apply pressure and take the Kremlin by surprise.
“The Kremlin is always more unhappy when it is unable to predict the outcome,” he said. “So it will be about trying new methods, because the old ones are not working.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.